Who Gets into Government? Coalition Formation in European Democracies

Abstract

This article investigates different dynamics in government formation in 16 Western and 10 Central-Eastern European democracies during the post-war period.The study provides the first systematic comparison of determinants of participation in government in the East and the West.Applying mixed effects logit regression models while taking into account missing values in the dataset, the results demonstrate substantial differences between the two regions and show that most of the existing findings about participation in government are driven by Western democracies.Policy-based factors are relevant in Western countries, but no indications were found for these factors in Central-East European democracies where membership of government is mainly the result of electoral gains and losses.We know that party systems and electoral volatility in the West and the East differ significantly (e.g.Bielasiak 2002).In West European democracies we find well-established party systems and quite stable electoral support for parties.In contrast, the last two decades of democratic consolidation in Central-Eastern Europe have been accompanied by major changes in the party systems of those countries, significantly higher levels of electoral volatility and more significant vote losses of parties in government (e.g.Pop-Eleches 2010; Roberts 2008).Based on existing theories of coalition formation, we would expect these differences to result in different determinants of government participation in Western and Central-Eastern European democracies.However, existing research has focused on one of the two regions and we are in need of more systematic comparisons between the West and East.Two major research questions about government formation can be distinguished.Firstly, what is the probability of a parliamentary party becoming a government member (e.g.Mattila and Raunio 2004;Tavits 2008;Warwick 1996)?Stated differently, what are the factors that determine whether a party with a given set of characteristics such as size, ideological position and recent electoral performance takes part in a government?Secondly, given all